New York City – Staten Island, New York, USA

Simone Johnson
cre-a-tion dance collective moves as a catalyst and collaborator for holistic planetary (re)generation.
We aim to be a space for intergenerational and interdisciplinary movement exploration, experimentation and performance.

History of Site and Related Water Issues:

Silver Lake is located in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Staten Island. The original lake is described as a “spring-fed body of water” and a “natural waterway” before it was drained in 1913 and created into a 56 acre city reservoir built in 1917. It hasn’t been used for drinking water since 1971. Today there are underground storage tanks under the lake that contain Staten Island’s main source of drinking water.
In 2016 the Brooklyn to Staten Island siphon or Richmond Tunnel was completed, allowing up to 150 million gallons of drinking water per day to be delivered to Staten Island residents.
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From the wider Catskill/Delaware Watersheds, which supply 90 percent of New York City’s drinking water, through the Croton Watershed, through the Kensico Reservoir and Hillview Reservoir into the Bronx and down into Brooklyn through Richmond Tunnel and into underground storage tanks, our drinking water arrives.
We are dancing at Silver Lake Park, near this water locale where our water is stored to raise/ awareness/foster curiosity about learning where our drinking water comes from, and to honor water and the role it plays in the web of life.

Music:

Section III: Global Dance 2017 composed by Nicolas Soto

The Performance:

Global Water Dances at Silver Lake Park
Join us on June 24 for a community celebration!1:00pm-2:00pm: Plant Walk led by Jeremy LaPointe from The Greenbelt Native Plant Center (optional)2:15-2:35pm: Water Movement Meditations *TBD*2:45pm-3:05pm: Staten Island OutLOUD Water Poems3:15pm-3:45-4:00pm: Global Water Dance Performance4:00pm: Closing Remarks

Environmental Impact:

We move to remember, honor and celebrate water as a precious, life-sustaining and healing resource for the web of life.

We hope that the entire day, from learning about the plants that live in Silver Lake Park to listening to poems about and embodying water to audience witnessing and participation are acts of finding and cultivating relationship not only with water and where it comes from (especially within the context of Staten Island), but finding and cultivating relationship with ourselves, each other and the surrounding plants, all of who/which are also made of water and need water to survive and flourish.

We aim to raise awareness about and reflect on the primary source of Staten Island’s drinking water, and continue exploring this at a later date during cre-a-tion dance collective’s summer programming.

Directions to the Site of Performance:

Silver Lake Park Rd, Staten Island, NY 10301
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By Train and Bus:
1 (South Ferry), R (Whitehall Street), 4 and 5 (Bowling Green) and J (Broad Street) trains are near the South Ferry (free of charge) to Staten Island.
Take the S48/S98 bus to Forest Avenue and Oxford Place and walk across the street to enter the park (on the Forest Avenue side). You will see us below, in the grassy area near the lake.
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For Car Directions via Google Map:https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/silver-lake-parkNOTE: The event will take place on the Forest Avenue side, near the lake.